


When the Voices Catch Up

by carmelitilla



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Anger, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Loss of Control, Love, Unrequited Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3237917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmelitilla/pseuds/carmelitilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan heard a rushing in his ears. He felt guilty sure, but he had been right, hadn’t he? Cerberus was as bad as he thought, worse even. She had left him, abandon him to the mercies of the Alliance without a second thought, after everything they had been through. “You want someone to take the blame, Shepard?”</p><p>Shepard flinched at the way he said her name, quiet like a plea, the way he always had.</p><p>Kaidan saw the fury receding; saw the gears of her mind turning to file it away. What would happen if it broke through out there in the real world? How could she fight everyone else when she was too busy fighting herself? “You’ve no one to blame but yourself,” he baited her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Voices Catch Up

The Spectre office was empty, as it usually was. Shepard entered pulling on the collar of her Alliance uniform as it threatened to choke her. The steady hum of the ventilation system did nothing to calm her mind. At least she could be thankful that the bustle of the embassies was silenced by the heavy click of the door mechanisms.

  
 _Thessia_ , she heard as she approached the requests console. She had been through enough failures to know the voice wasn’t really there. Still, it sent a shiver down her spine.

  
Shepard gripped the keyboard while she read. _Authorize, Authorize, Authorize, Thessia_ – Shepard’s knuckles whitened as she tried to force the blaming voices to a darker corner of her mind. What else could you have done? _Two Asari units, two amongst thousands of commandos, TWO, and you couldn’t even_ – Shepard pushed back from the console with an aggravated sigh. It’s in the past, she told herself, nothing you can do now. She checked the special weapons marque before shaking her head and looking back at the door. No one could afford those weapons, what was she doing here? _Hiding._

  
 _I am not hiding, I don’t hide_ , but Shepard’s conscience didn’t defend her with any conviction. The next mission was clear; find the Illusive Man and kill him. _Another death by your hands._ No, he deserved to die; anyone with that much blood on his hands deserved nothing less. Shepard crossed her arms over her chest, restless. _Then it’s nothing less than what you deserve._

  
Shepard bent in on herself. This was why she had come to the Citadel. To stop the voices, and to give everyone one more chance to breathe. Garrus and Tali needed time to say goodbye to each other, EDI and Joker needed time to figure out whatever was going on with them, Liara needed time to say goodbye to her father – _who you also failed._

  
“Arg!” Shepard shouted, the growl echoing off the metal in the quiet. Her armour glinted in the faux illumination beside the shooting range. She didn’t need time to breathe, she needed to keep herself busy so the voices wouldn’t catch up. She crossed to her armour and snatched up her N7 helmet, black and red – _like your soul_.

“Seriously?” Shepard asked aloud. Even she wasn’t that tragically poetic. “Smarten up,” she told herself fixing her shotgun against her shoulder. The air was cooler in the shooting chamber. A quick few taps on the computer and her targets were set. The first shot cleared a hole through the shadowed chest of the figure on the laminate. The bang flushed the accuser from her mind even as the reverberation of the shot massaged the clench of her heart.

_Thessia..._

“Son of a bitch,” Shepard whispered. She aimed again baring her teeth.

Bang!

_Thessia..._

Bang!

_Collector Base..._

Bang!

_Kasumi..._

_A flash - violet eyes wide with panic. Kasumi rushes away from the mechanics ducking under Garrus’ assult rifle. She’s saying something, begging the door to close as they both try to force it, but it’s slippery with the bile splashing from the Collector carcasses falling just on the other side. Shepard thinks she can hear Harbinger. She stumbles foreward as the door finally gives and then Kasumi flies, her hood falling with the snap of her neck. Her lips are all red –_

Bang!

_Horizon..._

Bang!

_Mordin..._

Bang!

  
Shepard gasps trying to steady her breath. A drip of perspiration slides from her temple, slithering behind her ear. Her arm aches. She needs a new round of targets, but at least it’s gone –

_Thane..._

“Arg!” Shepard shouts firing in rapid succession. When the clip runs out she runs foreword and launches the gun at the targets. “Fuck you!” She slams her fist against the computer.

The range doors beep and slide open. Shepard holds her breath fighting for control. _Don’t let it be the Salarian,_ she begs. She sees her gun at the other side of the range. Suddenly, she feels like a petulant child.

Shepard blinks and glances sideways. Black armour, Locust-12, biotics – Kaidan didn’t have his helmet on.

His brown eyes were wide, shocked still at the display she’d unfathomably given. “Hi Kaidan,” she said anyway, straightening up. She was about to ask him how he’d gotten in when she remembered - _Udina._

“Hi Shepard,” he said as if he was waking up. He came forward stopping just before he stumbled into her personal space – a wise decision. Shepard was tensed like a wire.

The silence became ever more thin.

“Who are you imaging that has you firing like that?”

Shepard looked up at the target – or what was left of it. It fell with a clatter beside her discarded shotgun as if surrendering. _Thane._ She could imagine causing the same destruction at the sight of his killer. “Kai Leng,” she decided.

“Ah,” Kaidan managed, shifting from one foot to the other. He wasn’t sure how he could diffuse the situation. He had heard about Thessia. He knew what she must be thinking. It wasn’t her fault, it was the Reapers'.

Shepard resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She didn’t believe Kaidan could understand, how could he?  _Ebony green eyes watch stars that soar overhead. I stir and he realizes I’m watching him. He smiles his secret smile, the one only I get to see. His chest rumbles as he turns and embraces me. It soothes me. I don’t have to say anything._ Christ, she even sounded Drell.

Shepard had changed from the person Kaidan had known on the Normandy SR-1. Sure, she was still Shepard; calculating, preserving every life she could, beautiful and a force to be reckoned with – but she had become – more wild. It was like rebirth had stripped her of her nurturing, her lessons in control. She was purified and dammed if she needed any more qualities worthy of worship – god he loved her.

Shepard’s face twisted in pain again, the silence was suffocating. Kaidan wished he knew what she was thinking.

“Hey Shepard,” Kaidan started misreading her expression. He gripped her shoulder as if he could pull her back from the edge. “We’ll get him, I promise.”

Shepard swallowed but she couldn’t stop herself. “'Cause your promises are worth so much,” she scoffed.

Kaidan reeled back like she’d slapped him. He knew he deserved it - knew he failed her - but to hear her say it aloud, when she’d been so accepting every time he’d brought it up before? He had thought, he had hoped –

“I’m sorry,” Shepard tried but she couldn’t meet his eyes again. He looked so human, so fragile. _They’re all too human_. “Kaidan, I know-“

“No,” he stopped her. He moved to stand in front of her so she had to look at him. She was all fire and pain in her too large green eyes. “You want to be mad at someone, fine, be mad at me.”

Shepard’s brow knitted together, confused – or perhaps exasperated. She sighed and turned away but Kaidan drew her back sharply. She looked down at his gloved hand on her forearm. “Careful, Major,” she warned.

Kaidan heard a rushing in his ears. He felt guilty sure, but he had been right, hadn’t he? Cerberus was as bad as he thought, worse even. She had left him, abandon him to the mercies of the Alliance without a second thought, after everything they had been through. “You want someone to take the blame, Shepard?”

Shepard flinched at the way he said her name, quiet like a plea, the way he always had.

Kaidan saw the fury receding; saw the gears of her mind turning to file it away. What would happen if it broke through out there in the real world? How could she fight everyone else when she was too busy fighting herself? “You’ve no one to blame but yourself,” he baited her.

“What did you say to me?”

Kaidan stood firm against her fury, stealing himself against the hurt that turned her eyes more verdant green. It was the gaze that made Barbatarians cower.

“How dare you –“ Shepard clenched her fists trying to lock them to her side. “You don’t – you weren’t – you haven’t –“

“Haven’t I, Shepard?”

“No!” Shepard shouted, her palms came up and shoved him backward of their own accord. “You weren’t there!”

“How could I have been? You left me.”

“I left you?!”

Kaidan wasn’t stupid enough to put himself back within her grasp. He could feel his nerves vibrating as they picked up on her biotics, igniting just below the surface.

“You’re still leaving me,” he pressed. “When was the last time you took me out with you on a mission? What are you trying to do, protect me?”

Shepard started shaking, the instinct to fight, to throw this energy out of her was gnawing at her insides like an insatiable dragon. “Kaidan, I-“ she stopped, her voice too hoarse to force the words from her throat. He had walked away from her. She had never thought that maybe she could have come back -

“Look where protecting people has gotten you.”

Shepard charged at him. She caught Kaidan around the middle and drove him back into the viewing glass. Kaidan let out a huff even as the glass cracked from the force of her biotics.

“What would you know about protecting people?” Shepard shouted at him. She gripped his throat, her soft hands suddenly rough and unforgiving. “You abandon me!”

Kaidan pushed her back with his biotics and Shepard snarled at him, digging her feet in for traction. She threw her fists wildly. Kaidan circled out of her grasp. He let her chase him from one corner of the room to the next, easily dodging her when all she could see was red.

“I did everything for you!” she shouted, though he tried to remember it was whipped at him in the heat of the moment. He wasn’t sure he was the only one Shepard was condemning. This was everyone, from every moment they had failed her. She took on too much, blamed herself for other peoples’ faults.

Shepard launched a field at Kaidan. He flew backward, smacking his head off of the railing. He tried to blink the stars out of his eyes. He saw the bottom of her boot and rolled out of the way before she connected, but just barely.

“Have I not given enough?” she shouted at him now that they were on opposite sides of the room. She ground her heel into the place he had been moments before. She was panting, a blue shield humming around her. “Have I not earned victory?”

Shepard ran at him and he swivelled locking his arms across her torso and trapping her. She let out a cry of fury.

“You’ve done everything you could, Shepard.”

“It’s not enough!” she growled at him trying to throw him backward, but he held onto her even as the breath was knocked out of him.

“It is enough,” he told her more quietly.

Shepard hesitated. She struggled again and he pulled her down trapping her against him on the floor of the shooting range, the only spectators the destroyed targets.

“It is enough,” he breathed, his ribs stung when he inhaled.

“No!” she tried to argue. What was he doing to her? The broken barricade in front of her will was charring before the offence of her rage.

“I’m sorry –“ Kaidan whispered and she could have sworn he was rocking her.

“I-“ Shepard relaxed but it only served to make Kaidan hold her more tightly.

“You have to accept that sometimes fate let’s the bad guys win.”

“They don’t deserve to pay for it with their lives Kaidan,” Shepard shivered. He was rocking her. Why was  _this_ his job? No one should have to do this.

“I don’t know why you came back,” Shepard admitted pulling her hands up to cradle her face. Kaidan pressed his forehead into her shoulder. “How could you want to be a part of this? Any of this? Even I don’t –“ Shepard’s voice caught.

“It’s going to end, Shepard.” Kaidan promised.

She didn’t speak, she couldn’t.

“But you have to stop believing that it’ll end clean.”

Shepard’s heart pounded against her rib cage, _he’s right_. “I must have missed something, there was something I didn’t - or – Poor Liara.”

“Liara understands,” Kaidan tried to assure her.

Shepard was quiet for a moment. Then she shook her head, “Maybe. There’s certainly no use sitting here and crying about it.”

Kaidan sighed audibly. He said a silent prayer for someone to save her from her own stubbornness.

“You never told me why you’re here.” Shepard whispered.

“You missed our dinner date.” Kaidan shrugged. “And I wanted to spend this time with you.”

“Kaidan –“

Kaidan stood and helped Shepard to her feet. He wrapped his arms around her before she could say more. He would be whatever she needed him to be, even if that meant saving her from herself. “It’s alright, Shepard.”

Shepard sighed into his shoulder and leaned against him. She couldn't remember being smaller than anyone, but Kaidan suddenly seemed impossibly large - unwavering. He encircled her and she could almost grasp at peace.

“Common,” Kaidan said pulling her with him. “Let’s get you back to the Normandy.”

“And then what?” Shepard shivered.

“And then you can have that dinner with me that you missed.”


End file.
